Golkar and Peterporn

In the last few days, there are two hot topics that have been the focus of the Indonesian media.

The first one is the demand made by the member of the ruling coalition the Golkar Party that each of the 560 members of the House of Representative (DPR) to be given an "Aspiration Fund" amounting to 15 Billion Rupiah each year.
This demand has been strongly protested by the public including other political parties of the ruling coalition.

The second one is the porn-video showing sex-intercourse between Ariel, the vocalist of a well known  Pop band Peterpan, and two well known actresses presenter, model: Luna Maya, and Cut Tari. According to rumors Ariel has made video of his sex-adventures with 32 other women, that people on Twitter have given him the nickname Peterporn. Ariel and Luna denied having played in the sex video, however a telematic expert said that both of them played in the video..

I am not sure whether the above two hot topics just accidentally popped up together at almost the same time.
But one thing for sure is that the Peterporn video has diverted public's attention from Golkar Party's demand for Aspiration Fund.

Tifatul Sembiring

Politicians are public relation officers for themselves and their political parties. They would maintain this role even after they have been appointed or elected to public offices.

One of the politicians in the cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) who maintain such role is Minister of Communication & Information Tifatul Sembiring .

Tifatul was born in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, on 28 September 1961, he is a Computer Engineer, and before he became a minister, he was the President of Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS).

The media has been reporting lots of things about him, among others that he is an on-line activist, practiced polygamy, doesn’t want to shake hands with women and thinks that the natural disasters in Indonesia were caused by immorality of its people, which sparks protests. In reaction to the protests in Twitter, Tifatul gave a prize: mobile phone to the best protester i.e. who described PKS as Nazi and Tifatul as Joseph Goebbels but was turned down.

For details, please click here, here, here, here and here.

Considering the above, I hope that as Minister of Communication & Information Tifatul Sembiring would give full priority to the best interests of the Indonesian people based on the principle of unity in diversity.

TV Broadcasting Ban

TV broadcasting of the Court Trial of former Corruption Eradication Commission(KPK) Antasari Azhar has annoyed the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI).

Due to this reasonKPI is now planning to ban direct bbroadcasting of public hearings in the court of law and parliament starting December 2009.

According to a member of KPI Bimo Nugroho such ban is neccessary based on KPI's Broadcasting Behaviour Guidance and Broadcasting Program Standard. As an example, he mentioned about the Court Trial of Antasahari that revealed sexual relationship between Antasari and Rani.

This plan was strongly protested by the media, the Press Council, member of the House of Representative and lawyers who said that such ban violates the Constitution Article 28 F which guarantee citizen's right to get information, as well as the Press Law No.40/1999 Article 4(2) that protects the media against broadcasting sensorship and prohibition.

In reaction to the growing protests, KPI's Chief Professor Sasa Djuarsa said that the plan is still not yet finalized.

For detailed reports, please click here, here, here, here and here.

I hope that the above mentioned KPI's plan does not indicate that Indonesia will be going back to the old days of controlled/censored media.